Debunking two viral (and deeply misleading) 2019 (political) maps

[Bayard]

Washington (CNN)In the wake of a series of defeats at the ballot box on Tuesday -- Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin's all-but-certain loss and Democrats' takeover of the Virginia state House and Senate -- Republicans, from President Donald Trump on down, have sought to downplay the meaningfulness of the results.

Arizona Republican party chairwoman Kelli Ward took that rationalizing to new heights late Wednesday when she pushed "send" on this tweet:

Dr. Kelli Ward 🇺🇸
✔
@kelliwardaz
Should we look toward an #ElectoralCollege type system at the state level?

What Ward is driving at -- and what seems to be supported by these county-by-county maps in both Virginia and Kentucky -- is that there is a whole lot more red than blue on those maps. And yet, Democrats won in Virginia and appear to have ousted Bevin in Kentucky too. (Bevin, who trails Democrat Andy Beshear by just more than 5,000 votes, is asking for a recanvassing of the vote.)
Hence Ward's "Should we look toward an #ElectoralCollege type system at the state level?" tweet. Because if, say, every county in a state got one electoral vote (just as a for-instance) then, obviously, looking at the two maps above, the results would be a lot more favorable to Republicans.
The problem with Ward's argument is, well, it's dumb. Very dumb.

And it's dumb for a very simple reason: These county-by-county maps -- whether in a single state or nationally -- are hugely misleading. What they show is land, not population. So, when you see, say, a sparsely populated but large -- geographically speaking -- county in eastern Kentucky colored red and a small county with a major city in it colored blue, your first reaction might be: Hey, wait a minute -- that red county is way bigger!
By that logic, of course, Alaska would be the most important and powerful state in the country. It's super big!

https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/07/politics/kentucky-map-electoral-college/index.html

Good points explained in plain language.

[empedocles]

1. Dems need a population based scheme.

[jberryhill]

2. To be fair...

Yes, it’s land and not people. But when the majority of people are dumb as dirt, then the dirt should get a fair say.

Or, uh, something like that.

[guillaumeb]

6. Perhaps each acre of dirt could count as 3/5ths of a voter.

Or something like that.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

8. you trying to say that dirt can't vote?

All this time I've been voting the proxies of my acres.

[Rstrstx]

3. About 10-15 years ago weren't they trying to turn blue states into split delegate states...

...similar to what Maine and Nebraska have now while keeping the red states as winner take all?

[SCantiGOP]

4. Not to worry

Courts have been very consistent for a long time regarding “One man, one vote.”
Other than the US Senate, whose composition is defined in the Constitution, all states must treat each vote equally.

[guillaumeb]

5. Recommended.

The national maps are also misleading. Most of the population lives in the blue areas, and the red areas are mainly low population density areas.

But the right loves these misleading graphics because the graphics support the right wing idea that the US is a conservative country.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

7. woot! includes a link to xkcd

I'd post the png here, but then you'd miss the mouse-over text.

https://xkcd.com/1939/

[crickets]

9. Great map, thanks. nt

[Duppers]

10. Good points indeed.

And it really annoyed me when Steve Kornacki at MSNBC kept calling the western counties of Kentucky "coal country." Idiot.